


No Way to Say Goodbye

by Brinny



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Feels, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Jo Harvelle Also Needs a Hug, Kid fic but not really kid fic, Light Angst, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15233184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinny/pseuds/Brinny
Summary: Jo can’t remember the last time they had an October this cold. It’s been years, she thinks. She wraps herself in old sweaters and pulls wool socks up and over her knees and sits in front of the radiator as she reads long chapters of Russian novels that she never has the patience for in the summer months.Sometimes, in between kissing her goodbye and saying that he hates her, Sam leaves her lukewarm coffee on the stove. She pours it down the kitchen sink.





	No Way to Say Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written a few years ago (or maybe more than a few years ago?) and posted to live journal. But now it's been cleaned up and posted here. So, there's that. (I expect I'll be doing this with lots of random SPN fic, so apologies in advance, dudes.)

Jo can’t remember the last time they had an October this cold. It’s been years, she thinks. She wraps herself in old sweaters and pulls wool socks up and over her knees and sits in front of the radiator as she reads long chapters of Russian novels that she never has the patience for in the summer months. 

Sometimes, in between kissing her goodbye and saying that he hates her, Sam leaves her lukewarm coffee on the stove. She pours it down the kitchen sink. 

On a morning when he decides to stay, he cooks her breakfast to mark the occasion. He stands over the grill, his flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, and absently chews on a piece of bacon as he stares at the swell of her stomach. 

“Hey, don’t go outside today. It’s supposed to rain.”

She pushes past him with a snort, grabbing a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator, drinking right from the spout. 

“You don’t run my life.”

“It’ll be slippery. What if you trip and fall?” he asks. 

And he looks genuinely concerned, with his mouth set in a worried frown, as if she might actually trip on the slick and icy streets. For a brief moment, Jo wonders if this is what Sam as a child would have looked like: all messy hair and that soft, soft look in his eyes; and, suddenly, she feels bad for being mean to him. 

Placing the juice on the counter, she stands up on tiptoe to kiss him. He’s so much taller than her, so much taller than any of the boys she’s ever kissed before, that she’s just barely able to reach his mouth with hers. 

“I won’t go outside today,” she promises. 

Sam lets the pancakes burn, holds both of his hands on her growing belly, and whispers “thank you” into her neck. 

 

Jo thinks that they’re at their best at night, when the only light in the room is the dull black and white static from the forgotten television set and they can’t remember why they hate each other. 

Sam shucks off his jeans, lets them fall to the floor, and sits on the edge of the bed in his t-shirt and underwear, silent. After a minute or two, he crawls up the bed, next to her, shimmying under the blankets. He reaches his arm around the tops of her thighs, lets his feet press awkwardly against hers with his head resting on her stomach. Jo holds him there, her palm to the back of his neck and her fingers tangling in the hair that curls over his ears. She hums and Sam grips her tighter and Jo likes it likes this. She likes _them_ like this, when he pulls off his clothes and sleeps beside her and when they don’t fight. 

Looking up at her, his chin lightly digging into her belly, so big now, he asks, “Do you miss him?”

And now she remembers: they hate each other because of him. But she just gives an easy shrug of her shoulders and says, “Sure. Sometimes.”

“Did you love him?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “That was you. You loved him.” She pinches his shoulder in reminder and he yelps appreciatively before she soothes the spot with her fingertips. Then, with an unsure sound of ‘hmm’ in her throat, she says, “I think I’m going to go back to school after the baby is born.”

“Oh, yeah? What for?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be an accountant. I like numbers.”

“After the baby is born?” he repeats. 

“Yeah.”

Sam nods, finished with their talk, and pushes her shirt up, his lips moving over the swollen and rounded skin while, at the same time, his fingers pull at the edges of her panties. His tongue soon follows his fingers, with soft and firm strokes, just enough to get the cotton wet, before dipping into her. 

She likes them like this, too. 

 

 

Another October, not as cold as the year before, but the radiator is broken and the cool air outside chills the walls in her apartment. 

Sometimes (if her mom is out of town or if the babysitter cancels or if she asks him nicely), Sam watches Jack for her while she’s at class. 

When she comes home from her course on taxation, she finds the two of them nestled together on the sofa. Jack is sleeping soundly on Sam’s chest with one of Sam’s large hands resting on his tiny back and a sloppily knitted blanket tucked around them both. 

Jo could see them like this, like a little family. Her and Sam and baby Jack. 

She drops her book bag on the floor and sits cross-legged in front of the sofa, watching her son tuck his thumb into his mouth and listening to the sound of Sam’s snores.

Maybe, she thinks, they could make this work if they loved each other enough. Maybe, she thinks, if he didn’t resent her and if she wasn’t so mean to him. Maybe, if she hadn’t had slept with his brother, they wouldn’t hate each other so much. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Leaning in, she strokes Jack’s hair, then presses a light kiss to Sam’s knuckles and whispers, “Hey, I’m home.”

Sam shifts awake, blinking tiredly before rubbing the back of his free hand over the corner of his mouth. After confirming that his stirring hasn’t woken the baby, he looks to Jo. 

“Hi, how was class?”

“Good, it was good,” she answers. Standing, she eases Jack into her arms and, when he starts to fuss, cradles him against her shoulder. “How about him? Was he good?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, nodding. He sits up, flinging the blanket over the back of the sofa, and then quickly works out the stiffness in his neck, rolling it left to right and back again. “He’s always good.”

“Thanks for watching him.”

“Of course. Any time.”

This is the part that they don’t know how to do. Sam doesn’t know if he should stay. Jo doesn’t know if she wants him to. (Except he does and she does, but neither of them say it.)

“So, I’m going to go,” he says, finally, after a long and uncomfortable stretch of silence. He stands and grabs his coat from where it’s slung over the armchair. “Have a good night.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure. You too.”

He kisses her before he leaves, dips his head down low and softly touches his lips to hers. And Jo wants to want everything about this. 

 

 

In April, spring comes early, a sudden heat wave that catches everyone off-guard. Jo likes the unexpected warmth. She walks the stretch of the apartment in thin tank tops and worn jean shorts with a sleepy Jack in her arms as she sings him quiet lullabies. 

When Sam visits, he brings Chinese take-out (for them) and an electric fan (for the baby’s room). 

With Jack fast asleep, easily soothed by the delicate whirring of the fan’s blades, Sam and Jo sit on her bedroom floor and trade cartons of moo shu pork and chicken lo mein back and forth in between sips of wine. 

Slowly, Jo thinks, they’re getting better at this. He smiles at her instead of frowning and she’s sweet to him instead of mean. Jo doesn’t yell and Sam doesn’t leave. 

“Jack’s getting big,” Sam comments, mouth full of noodles. 

She nods in agreement. “I know. He’s walking already.”

“How’s your certification going?”

“Coming along.”

He grins, but not wide enough for it to reach his eyes. “That’s good.”

They’re more careful with each other in the daylight, she notices. Everything stays on the surface: _how’s the baby? it sure is hot out. what would you like for dinner? let me make the bed._

 

At night, when they strip down to their underwear and rest against each other, Jo’s back pressed to Sam’s front, things are different. 

“Do you ever regret having Jack?”

“Yes, sometimes,” she admits, quiet. 

He holds her closer, sliding a hand beneath her shirt and caressing her breast. She moves into the touch. 

“Would you ever have another baby?” he asks. 

Jo thinks she should lie, that she should pull away and tell him _No, never_. Instead, she puts her hand over his and moves it lower, lower, lower, until his fingers slide over her and into her and whispers, “Yes.” 

 

 

Months and years pass and they still can’t quite figure out how to make it work. 

Sometimes they’re better, sometimes they’re worse. Sometimes they fit and sometimes they fall apart. Sometimes she loves him and sometimes he hates her. 

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. 

 

 

It’s summer, but with the AC running at full blast, Jo keeps a moth-bitten cardigan around her shoulders. Sam doesn’t seem bothered by the cold, she notes from her spot on the bed, watching him walk out from the bathroom wearing only a pair of sweatpants and towelling off his wet hair. Water slides off his temples and the end of his nose and he wipes a hand down the front of his face. 

“I’m heading out in the morning.”

“Oh, yeah?” she asks, moving her stack of papers to sit on her bended knees, somewhat difficult now that she’s started to show, her small stomach protruding out from beneath her top. “What time?”

“Early,” he answers. 

He tosses the towel down to the floor, instead of in the laundry hamper in the corner, and Jo lets a sigh fall out of her mouth. 

“The hamper is _right_ there.” 

“Yeah,” he says through a smile, pulling on a clean t-shirt. “I know.”

“Are you trying to piss me off?

“Maybe.”

“Well, stop,” she instructs. She flips through the pages in her hands, making marks in red ink as she goes along. “I have work to do.”

And she wants to be mad at him, but if she’s being honest, she likes that this is what they fight about now; dirty clothes not being put in the hamper, whose turn it is to pick up Jack from pre-school, and why does she have to listen to her mother’s opinion on everything. It feels normal and right, even if they’re really just imagining that it is. 

Jo’s so focused on her work that she doesn’t even notice that Sam has climbed up beside her until she can feel his fingers pulling on the ends of her hair, his lips moving over her jaw. She sighs again, but it’s different this time, relaxed and _encouraging_. 

“What are you doing?”

With shrug of his shoulders, he says, “Apologising.” 

Gently holding a hand to her cheek, he turns her head so her lips can meet his in a kiss. She kisses him back, letting her mouth slack open under his so he can work his tongue in. 

“Good apology,” she says, in between kisses. Her hands find his hips and, when she tugs him on top of her, spreadsheets and quarterly budgets crumple between them. “Really, good.”

“Right?” he responds, grinning. He tucks his thumb under her chin and whispers, “C’mere” before kissing her again. 

Jo smiles, because on nights like this, it’s easy to pretend. It’s easy to pretend that he _really_ loves her and that this baby that they’re having together is going to fix things. It’s easy to pretend that this is going to work this time and easy to pretend that he wants this too. 

But mostly, it’s easy to pretend that Jack doesn’t have faint freckles spread across the bridge of his nose and the start of his cheeks. It’s easy to pretend that, instead, her son has Sam’s smile and his laugh. 

It’s easy to pretend that they don’t hate each other.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the Leonard Cohen song of a similar name "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye", which was the original title of the fic, and I gotta say I don't remember _why_ , because it's not necessarily a favourite of mine and it only kind of works with the story, but it is a really beautiful song. (Mr. Cohen ain't for everyone, so if you're curious, I'll also recommend the Feist version, which is insanely gorgeous.) 
> 
> I will say, however, the bit of Sam and Jo being at their best/not remembering why they hate each other is paraphrased from the song "Happy" by Jenny Lewis ft. The Watson Twins: _But I like watching you undress/And I think we're at our best/By the flicker, by the light of the TV set/'Cause I can't remember why I hated you/Can't remember why I still do_


End file.
